Hosea 4:9-14

The Message

^4-10 “But don’t look for someone to blame.
    No finger pointing!
You, priest, are the one in the dock.
    You stumble around in broad daylight,
And then the prophets take over and stumble all night.
    Your mother is as bad as you.
My people are ruined
    because they don’t know what’s right or true.
Because you’ve turned your back on knowledge,
    I’ve turned my back on you priests.
Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God,
    I’m no longer recognizing your children.
The more priests, the more sin.
    They traded in their glory for shame.
They pig out on my people’s sins.
    They can’t wait for the latest in evil.
The result: You can’t tell the people from the priests,
    the priests from the people.
I’m on my way to make them both pay
    and take the consequences of the bad lives they’ve lived.
They’ll eat and be as hungry as ever,
    have sex and get no satisfaction.
They walked out on me, their God,
    for a life of rutting with whores.

^11-14 “Wine and whiskey
    leave my people in a stupor.
They ask questions of a dead tree,
    expect answers from a sturdy walking stick.
Drunk on sex, they can’t find their way home.
    They’ve replaced their God with their genitals.
They worship on the tops of mountains,
    make a picnic out of religion.
Under the oaks and elms on the hills
    they stretch out and take it easy.
Before you know it, your daughters are whores
    and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.
But I’m not going after your whoring daughters
    or the adulterous wives of your sons.
It’s the men who pick up the whores that I’m after,
    the men who worship at the holy whorehouses—
    a stupid people, ruined by whores!